8/19/10  You Know, the Big Guy With the Bolts in His Neck, What’s-his-name

      As you may know already, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor and not his creation. You likely also know Dr. Frankenstein's assistant was named Igor. Frankenstein's monster had a name, too. Do you know it? If you don't, here's a hint: what would a man "playing God" name the "man" he created?

      The creature was named Adam.

      Yes, a short one this time. Feel cheated? Well, there is a picture and a picture is worth a thousand words. So this entry is one thousand, one hundred forty-three words long. One thousand, one hundred forty-six if contractions count as two words. Or one thousand, one hundred thirty-eight if hyphenated terms count as one word.

7/16/10  Invasive Biodiversity

      Previously in FF&T we examined how there's no such thing a weed. At least biologically. A weed is a plant you don't want to grow where it's growing. In other words, a weed is a human judgement. If there were no people there'd be no weeds.

      Now we look at a related topic, invasive species. To a large extent an invasive species is also nothing more than a human judgement. What I mean is, most species at one time or another were invaders of new habitat. Only we call that colonizing. They didn't spring up all over the place at once.

      Take eagles, for instance. There are various eagle species all over the world. All of them genetically related. How did that happen? Did they all spring up separately? Unlikely. Were they all one progenitor species at one time? How did that progenitor species exist all over the world? Did it spring up everywhere at once?

      Somehow at some time eagles spread around the world, they colonized, they were invasive species. This can happen a few times a long time apart so you get more than one eagle variety in the same place. Like bald eagles and golden eagles in North America. They may have come from the same progenitor, but the early arrival developed separately so that when the later one arrived they were different.

      This is how you get biodiversity. And isn't biodiversity a good thing? So then, colonizing species add biodiversity. Since an invasive species is the same thing, they add biodiversity, too. The adaption of the new species to the habitat and the habitat to the new species is the same process however the new species got there. This is one of the underlying mechanisms of evolution.

      What usually happens when a new species arrives is an initial population explosion, followed by a crash. After that the new species settles into it's new niche as part of the habitat. That's what happened with the alewife in the Great Lakes in the 1960s. At one point this invasive species accounted for some 80% of the fishlife in the lakes. One year there was a massive die-off as they over-reproduced for the food supply. Their numbers never recovered to that level, though the numbers of the other native fish did. Now the alewife is just another part of the Great Lakes habitat.

      This pattern has recurred over and over through the millennia when new species arrive. Call it invasion, or call it colonization, the process and the results are the same. So then, is an invasive species nothing more than a human judgement, like the notion of a weed?

      Consider one more thing, philosophically. Is there a time when the natural world reaches perfection so it shouldn't change thereafter? Is there a point when evolution should stop? Is being against invasive species like being against evolution? Just something to consider.

6/16/10  Two Bits for Free

      Sugar is a preservative. What do you think preserves the fruit in preserves? Fresh fruits will spoil, rot away in a matter of days if left on their own. Meanwhile, a jar of preserves can last for years in the fridge and still be good.

      A banana is not really a fruit, so they tell me. It's an herb. This means... I don't know, which might be why this is filed under trivia.

      At this point the reader might feel a bit shortchanged. With good reason. So as a sop to the disappointed I'll toss in this bit of food prep advice you'll not get on most cooking shows.

How to peel a banana.

      I don't know what percentage does it this way, but many peel a banana starting at the attachment end. That is, they tear it open by breaking the skin at the stem. This often as not mushes up the top end of the banana especially the riper it is.

      Here is where we can learn from monkeys which open bananas at the other end, at the little black button at the far tip. Try it for yourself if you never have, it's easier. No muss, no fuss, no tools required, no mushed end of the banana. Peel, eat, and enjoy.

5/20/10  Did They Eat Potato Cheops?

      Though many people now-a-days like to blame heart disease on our all-so-modern lifestyle and diet, it seems hardening of the arteries and whatnot are as old as the hills. Or as old as the pyramids. As reported in The Wall Street Journal:

      [Researchers] were able to identify the hearts, arteries or both in 16 of the mummies, nine of whom had deposits of calcification... "Not only do we have atherosclerosis [artery hardening] now, it was prevalent as long as 3,500 years ago," said Gregory Thomas, a cardiologist and imaging specialist at University of California, Irvine, who was principal investigator of the study. "It is part of the human condition."

      They tell me the Mediterranean diet is supposed to help prevent coronary disease, what happened? Surely the ancient Egyptians weren't eating junk food, were they? They didn't eat non-organic produce, did they? How much non-local food did they consume? Did they guzzle lavish doses of Ramses Cola and gobble Tater Tuts or what?

4/20/10  Is the Big Bang Science or Religion?

      You may not know it, but the Big Bang origin of the universe was first proposed by Abbé Georges Lemaitre, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and a scientist. Lemaitre himself privately said this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas' theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.

      Another thing you may not know there are many who don't accept the Big Bang Theory. I'm not talking theologians, I'm talking scientists. These scientists, mainly electrical and plasma specialists, not only reject the Big Bang, but great swaths of the standard model of the universe, including dark matter, dark energy, black holes, bending space, gravitational waves, an expanding universe and more. There's even a different theory of how the sun works, not by fusion as is commonly held, but by electricity through plasma.

      You can read about it at:
The Electric Universe
Thunderbolts

      Agree or disagree, I can pretty well guarantee you'll find it interesting and thought provoking at least. I've even spoofed aspects of the standard model myself with Space Warps and Wefts. Maybe I was onto something and didn't know it.

4/14/10  What if They Had a War and Nobody Came?

      Ever hear of the 1835 "Toledo War" between Michigan and Ohio? Thing is, there was no actual war to speak of, more like a war of words. The maneuvers weren't military on the battlefield, but political in Congress. Not only that, the city of Toledo hadn't been founded when all the hullabaloo was in full vent. Which means during the "Toledo War" there was no war and no Toledo.

      Basically it was a border tussle between Michigan and Ohio wherein each wanted control of the mouth of the Maumee River at the western end of Lake Erie, where Toledo is today. At the time this figured to be the important (read money-making) terminus of a canal to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Which goes to show you the animosity between Buckeyes and Wolverines predates the University of Michigan-Ohio Sate rivalry by a century.

      The spat was over disputed borders dictated by the Northwest Ordinance and complicated by some mistaken mapping of where the southern tip of Lake Michigan was. The Northwest Ordinance was enacted under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution was instituted which caused a legal tangle of whether provisions from a previous regime carried over to the new government.

      At any rate, Ohio won the dispute in Congress and got the "Toledo Strip." No surprise considering Ohio was already a state with Senators and House reps while Michigan, being a territory, had little political clout. As a result the Michigan-Ohio border is angled and not due east-west like many latitudinal borders between states.

      As a sop to disgruntled Michiganians the state was given the western part of the upper peninsula. This likely would have been part of what is now Wisconsin, but folks there had even less clout than Michigan so it went down without too much of a fuss. In the end this tract of "wasteland" full of timber, copper, and whatnot turned out to be more valuable than the Toledo strip.

      The canal to Lake Michigan never panned out as railroads came along rendering canal plans moot. After all, railroad tracks could go up and down grades where canals had to be level. Besides, trains were a lot faster and railroads were easier to build as they needn't be watertight or require a vast source of water for filling. Thus railroads could go over mountains and through deserts. Even though there aren't any between Toledo and Chicago, you get the point.

3/30/10  Les Garçons du Ver Mont

      If you're a student of American Revolutionary War history you're familiar with Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, a crack militia force from New England. While militias seem to have a bad name nowadays, that wasn't the case 200 years ago when America's militias were considered patriots. Though I imagine that would depend on which side you're on. I'm sure British royalists pretty much considered them violent extremists.

      One thing distinguishing the Green Mountain Boys from most was their uniform, which wasn't traditional European frock coats but fringed buckskins. There were some who thought the entire Continental Army should be so oufitted. Buckskin frontier wear would have been more practical in the wilds of early America. Even the fringe served a purpose of helping shed water. While keeping wearers warm when damp, woolen coats were not so water-proof. There was no Scotch-Guard back then.

      So, the Green Mountain Boys didn't wear green uniforms. Anyway, it wasn't the men who were green, but the mountains. In what part of New England are these green mountains? Vermont, of course. Why of course? Because Vermont means Green Mountain, only in French. Vermont is next door to Quebec, and has a spillover French name. Ver means green, and mont means mountain.

      Vermont isn't the only state with a French name. Louisiana was named after the king of France, Louis. Which Louis I'm not sure, they had so many. The XIV, XV, XVI? Seems like they were all named Louis, other than the odd Charles here and there. And Charlemagne. But he was a long time ago before there even was a France, or Louisiana or Vermont.

3/12/10  On Your Marks, and... Action!

      One might imagine space as a cube made of height, width, and depth. Or altitude, latitude and longitude. In this space we plot something's location along these three co-ordinates. Take a fly in a box. At point A the fly is at 1' altitude, 1' latitude, and 1' longitude.

      Say the the fly flies to point B at 9' altitude, 9' latitude, and 9' longitude. The fly flying from A to B takes time. Without time it would have to be in both spots at once, and at every spot along the path from A to B. To really know the fly's location you must know not only where it is, but when it is.

      Without time things would be many places at once. Not only that, everything would happen at once. I mean, you'd be born and die at the same time, which is always right now. That's a pretty mean trick and highly unlikely. Motion takes time, without it the universe is frozen in place and nothing happens. Ask yourself, what's use of a three-dimensional universe where nothing can happen.

      On the other hand, can you have time but no space? What would an object be if it had no height, width or depth? Again you'd have a case where nothing can happen because there's no space for it to happen in. And nothing in the non-space anyway. If nothing happens how do you measure the passage of time? Is there even such a thing as time in that case?

      Can there be space without time or time without space? I don't know, my brain isn't big enough to get around that. But having one without the other just wouldn't work. Nothing could happen so what would be the point. That's how the universe is 4-dimensional, why they call it the space-time continuum.

      This is how movies are 3-D. They have height, width and time. With the exception of movies in 3-D which are 4-D.

2/17/10  Magnificent Merlin

      The German Me109, the British Spitfire, the American Mustang, and the Japanese Zero are perhaps the most famous fighter planes of WWII. Three of the four used essentially the same powerplant, the merlin engine developed by Rolls-Royce. The exception being the Zero, or "Zeke" as it was called by US navel air forces, which employed a Mitsubishi radial engine.

      One might easily imagine how the Mustang got an English engine as the US and the British were allies. The Mustang, or P51, had rather unexceptional performance until the Brits put in the merlin turning it into a great plane. The English also gave the P51 its Mustang moniker.

      On the other hand, on the other side actually, the Me109 didn't use a merlin built by Rolls-Royce, but a variation of it. This was originally licensed to Messerschmitt before the war and developed into the engine that powered the Me109 in all its many incarnations.

      Using basically the same engine is one reason the Spitfire and Me109 had very similar performance characteristics. On paper, anyway. In the field the Spitfire bettered the 109 because the British burned higher octane aviation fuel from the US while the Germans, constantly strapped for petroleum, used a lower grade. Of course, the skill of the pilot made a difference, but that's another story.

      The Rolls-Royce building aircraft engines was not the same Rolls-Royce making cars, but was a seperate company. They started together but split up only both kept the name. BMW also built aircraft engines. In fact that's where thier logo comes from, it represents a spinning propeller. Which explains the opening pic.

      In case you ever wondered, the "P" in P51 stood for "pursuit" which is what they called fighters back then.

      Correction: The connection between the 109 and the Spitfire was both were inspired by the Heinkel He70 powered by a Kestral engine. That engine was developed into the Merlin. The first Me109 used the Kestral, but was replaced with a Daimler-Benz powerplant.

      To atone for my mistake, an additional bit of trivia. The German's didn't designate the craft Me109, but rather Bf109.

2/2/10  Bloody Barbers!

      Old time symbolic signs made it possible for illiterates to know where to shop. For instance, the three balls on a pawn shop told the great unwashed where to get a loan. Still, how does a red and white striped pole mean "get your hair cut here"?

      Back in the day, way back, a barber was the go-to guy to have your hair cut off, your beard cut off, or your pinky toe cut off. Ye olde barbers treated wounds and performed simple surgery. The red and white stripes of a barber pole represent blood and bandaging, or a bloody bandage. You might say early barbers were proto-surgeons.

      Before the 19th century surgeons weren't doctors and vice-versa. In simple terms, doctors treated diseases while surgeons treated injuries. Doctors employed potions and bleeding and whatnot to restore a patient's balance of humors which they thought was unique to each patient. Surgeons were more tradesman-like with a hands-on understanding of flesh and bone which they treated with tools. Surgeons thought a wound was a wound whoever was wounded.

      The stock of surgeons rose during wartime where treating wounds was just what the doctor ordered, even though surgeons did it. Wounded soldiers needed surgeons using tools rather than doctors using elixirs and bleeding. Especially since the wounded were already bleeding.

      Fast-forward to today and surgeons are doctors, and barbers no longer cut off anything but hair. Had the symbolic red and white pole gone over to doctoring with the surgeons perhaps hospitals would be adorned with barber poles instead of snakes on a winged staff. Where that symbol comes from is another story for another day. As is why a pawn shop sports a trio of balls.

1/14/10  Doesn't Taste Like Chicken

      They tell me salt is the only rock we eat. At least the only rock we eat on purpose with a purpose. And the only one that tastes good. Other rocks in our food is grit, which is almost always unpleasant.

      But then we eat little bits of many unsavory things besides grit that get in food. Like animal hair, insect parts, worm castings and so on. Kept to a minimum we can survive all that. Of course finding an entire rat in your food is an unwelcome prospect. Finding one in your KFC is possibly a lawsuit or an urban myth.

      On the other hand salt is required eating as we need it for a little biological process we call "being alive." They also tell me this is because land animals evolved from sea creatures that migrated out of the oceans. To survive out of water, land animals had to take the sea with them. So we are in large part water, or rather salt water if you will.

      All of which reminds me of what might be the first joke I ever heard. A riddle actually. What's big and red and eats rocks? A big red rock eater. Yes, it's a silly joke, but it didn't take much to amuse me at five years of age. Still, though I am not five years old, big and red, I do eat rocks. So do you.